Observation August 15/16 2018

I nearly skipped the following night because the sky took a lot longer to clear and I was tired from all the observing. But it was finally looking like the west end would clear up at about 2am. I’m very glad I took a chance and went! When I arrived at Bootland, the sky was a glorious canopy of stars all over; the clearest sky since August 9! The sky transparency was above-average transparency (4/5) and the Milky Way was thick and structured. Temperature a little cooler too at 14C. It was also one of those rare dry nights with almost no dew or fog. I signed on at 2:25am and watched for 2 hours until dawn. I saw 64 meteors (breakdown: 27 Perseids, 8 Eridanids, 4 South Delta Aquariids, 2 North Delta Aquariids, 1 Kappa Cygnid, 1 Antihelion and 21 sporadics).

The highlight was actually just a few minutes after I signed off. I took one last glance at the sky, and I saw a very slow Capricornid earthgrazer, mag +1, blue white with a nice “tail” behind the meteor.

I find meteor rates are especially quite a bit better when the sky is very clear!